This ‘Virtual Bradford’ is an aspiration of Bradford Metropolitan District Council and is brought to fruition by the University of Bradford’s Visualising Heritage group.

Why are we creating a Virtual Bradford? 

This clone will provide accurate levels of detail of the built environment for various priorities uses for the Council, including urban/civic planning; improve traffic management; support the modelling of air quality, flood risk and noise pollution; contribute to disaster management planning; and to highlight the heritage of the City and its benefit to enhancing education, tourism and in fostering civic pride.

How do we create a Virtual Bradford?

The process is driven by the experience of Visual Heritage research in creating models of threatened heritage sites from across the world. Bringing this experience back to Bradford, we have developed a novel way to accurately capture the City of Bradford.

How will the City benefit from the Virtual Bradford model? 

These datasets will provide the framework and foundation for further digital documentation of important historical sites, buildings, and artefacts, to open Bradford’s Heritage to the world through development and promotion of virtual-tourism that explores our cultural value and allows us to connect the past with future generations. This will create resilience around tourism in the district and also to irreparable damage such as fire (e.g., Notre-Dame, Glasgow School of Art).

This event is part of UNIfy Festival and will be held online.

You can register for the event here.